TORONTO — The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television made several announcements Friday, including the appointment of five new board members, several new initiatives and a new development program designed to bring equity to the organization and the Canadian screen-based industry as a whole.
The new board members include: Shamier Anderson (Invasion, Bruised); Andréa Grau, founder and owner of Touchwood PR; Jennifer Hollyer, president of the Jennifer Hollyer Agency; Stephan James (If Beale Street Could Talk, Selma); and Tina Keeper (North of 60, Through Black Spruce). The new board appointees join 15 members in current standing, including board chair John…
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GATINEAU – Despite the demand it and others made to the CRTC for revised tariffs filed since the incumbent carriers lost their court case, no new revised tariff pages have yet been filed with the Commission by the network owners and until they are, independent ISP TekSavvy will stop paying its wholesale fees to Rogers and Bell.
On September 11th, TekSavvy, Distributel and the Competitive Network Operators of Canada each filed applications with the CRTC demanding the incumbent telco and cable carriers file new tariff pages as ordered by the Commission in its August 2019 decision setting new wholesale…
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OTTAWA – The federal government announced Friday it will make up to $50 million available to help film and TV productions get re-started in a Covid-19 world.
As we first reported in June, insurers have not extended coverage for potential coronavirus outbreaks on sets and the Canadian Media Producers Association has been working for months to try and get coverage and so the film and TV industry can back to work. It was originally seeking $100 million from the federal government.
Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault made the funding announcement Friday morning.
Administered by Telefilm Canada along with the Canada Media Fund,…
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By Christopher Guly
OTTAWA – The federal government needs to declare universal broadband access across Canada as an essential service, according to John Nater, the Official Opposition shadow minister for rural economic development.
“Online learning, e-commerce, connecting communities and families during the pandemic is absolutely essential now,” the conservative MP for the Ontario riding of Perth-Wellington (pictured) said in an interview. “Upwards of 60% of rural communities across Canada don’t have access to broadband and are missing out on economic opportunities. You cannot operate in 2020 without access to high-speed internet. It’s a roadblock to small businesses, to families, to communities.”
Last…
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By Christopher Guly
OTTAWA – Canadian business and industry leaders welcomed the federal Liberal government’s throne-speech commitment on Wednesday to “accelerate the connectivity timelines and ambitions” of the still not officially launched Universal Broadband Fund “to ensure that all Canadians, no matter where they live, have access to high-speed internet.”
“Covid’s made it clear that connecting Canadians is extremely important,” said Robert Ghiz, president and CEO of the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA), in an interview.
“I saw a lot of positives in the speech that hopefully relate back to the telecom and wireless industry. The government wants to build…
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By Dr. Mark Meitzen and Nick Crowley
NO ONE COULD REASONABLY claim a track contest was fair when one runner is required to run uphill against the wind while the other runners cover the same distance running downhill with the wind at their backs, yet that is precisely what is happening in Canadian wireless markets with the naive comparison of nominal prices for wireless services across countries without accounting for the significantly higher costs that Canadian wireless providers incur in providing service.
In terms of costs, Canadian providers are running uphill against the wind.
In previous economic analysis, we measured the individual…
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REGINA — SaskTel and the University of Saskatchewan (USask) announced today they have partnered to launch a “living laboratory” at the university’s Livestock and Forage Centre of Excellence (LFCE) to test, develop and demonstrate smart farming technologies.
Smart farming involves collecting and analyzing big data so that producers can make informed and sustainable farm management decisions that improve productivity, says the SaskTel press release.
The initiative will focus on conducting research, improving education around smart farming, and testing and validating new agricultural technology ideas and solutions. The project is being driven by researchers from the colleges of engineering, agriculture and bioresources,…
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TORONTO – The Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC) announced today it is piloting a new online government-funded training platform in partnership with Oakland, Calif.-based Qwasar Silicon Valley to strengthen digital skills development and access to digital jobs for Canadian youth.
The software engineering program and data science training program will be accessible entirely online across Canada. ICTC is launching the pilot within the context of its Youth Dividend program, funded by the government of Canada’s Digital Skills for Youth (DS4Y) program. The goal is to prepare students for exciting digital jobs in promising Canadian tech start-ups or globally leading…
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TORONTO — The Canada Media Fund (CMF) today announced it is taking two key actions to support creators from Black, Indigenous and people of colour (BIPOC) communities.
The first step is a top-up in Covid-19 emergency relief funds for companies owned by Black people and people of colour. The CMF also announced it has engaged three new team members to support and connect with BIPOC communities.
The top-up is part of phase one of the federal government’s Covid-19 Emergency Support Fund for cultural, heritage and sport organizations and is available to companies that are majority-owned by Black people and people of…
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“PEOPLE LOOK AT the news and see Black and brown faces reading the news,” says Hamlin Grange, who used to do just that for a living.
It’s progress, but it’s far from good enough.
“That’s representation, not inclusion,” Grange told our Bill Roberts in a recent interview for the Cartt.ca podcast. Without people of color in decision-making roles, or “power-broker” positions like executive producer, or even higher up – and there are very few Black, Indigenous and people of colour in such jobs in Canadian media – the industry can’t claim to be making progress. So much remains to be done.
Grange…
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